Zentan Chef Competes to Challenge Bobby Flay on the Food Network

Zentan’s Jennifer Nguyen may be one of the first chefs to compete against Bobby Flay in a new show. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

Zentan chef Jennifer Nguyen will compete in the first episode of the new Food Network series Beat Bobby Flay, which airs March 3.

The premise of the show is a mix of the ingredient-based challenges on Iron Chef and Throwdown With Bobby Flay, in which he engages in a cookoff with chefs known for a signature dish such as a po’ boy or chili. The first round of the culinary competition features two toques who compete to create a dish using a secret ingredient of Flay’s choice. A special guest like Giada De Laurentiis or Scott Conant picks the best candidate to try to out-cook Flay in the final challenge. The visiting chef cooks his or her signature dish, which is only revealed to the celeb toque at the beginning of the round. If he fails to concoct a tastier version, the visitor can claim they “beat Bobby Flay”—though they still have to pack their knives and go.

The sneak peek episode pits Nguyen against chef Anthony Lamas of Seviche in Louisville, Kentucky. Celebrity judges include the star chef’s chef Jonathan Waxman and the Food Network’s Sunny Anderson. Tune in at 10 to cheer for the local toque.

Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.